Dover's Apple Harvest Day crowd may have been double the past record

Wednesday

Oct 10, 2012 at 3:15 AM

By Michelle Kingstonmkingston@fosters.com

DOVER — This year’s Apple Harvest Day might have been the largest turnout since the event began 28 years ago — and we can thank Mother Nature for that.“We always shoot for 25,000 or 30,000 people,” said Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce Community Events Manager Michael Mengers. Mengers said they are unable to count exactly how many people were present at the festival along Central Avenue on Saturday, but he said they are fairly confident numbers were close to double what they have been in past years.“One of the best things was the unexpected turnout in the crowd,” said Mengers. “It was Columbus Day weekend and that really helped us out. A lot of organizations didn’t want to compete with the holiday. It was a long weekend and people were looking for something to do. We saw people from Portsmouth, Rochester, Maine and Massachusetts.”Mengers and Executive Director of the Dover Children’s Home Donna Coraluzzo, who is on the Board of Directors for the Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce and has been on the Apple Harvest Day committee for four years, both agreed the weather could be why so many people came out to the Seacoast’s premier fall festival.“There was something magical about this year,” said Coraluzzo. “The weather wasn’t as questionable as most years.”“This year, it was way busier earlier in the morning than I could ever have expected. It was like 10 o’clock, when people are usually just trickling in, and the streets were just completely packed,” he said. “I think that was because people were coming out early thinking the rain was going to come.”But, the rain never came and Central Avenue was full for the entire day, Mengers said, commenting that the rain didn’t hit Dover until 4:17, leaving everyone at the festival dry.Coraluzzo said she also noticed the bustling crowd in the morning. She said she left Henry Law Park around 11 a.m. to peruse Central Avenue. She looked up the street and saw a wave of thousands of people working their way down Central Avenue.“I ran right back down to the park,” she said.The large crowd was impressed with this year’s festival.“There was no negative feedback,” Coraluzzo said. “All good moods, all smiles. There were just so many opportunities and activities for everyone.”Mengers said the new features to this year’s event were a hit and classics, such as WOKQ’s Apple Pie contest, which has been at the festival for 27 years, had more participants than ever.“One gentlemen, in particular, came up to me and said, ‘You know, every year we come to Apple Harvest Day and we usually spend about an hour here.’ This year, he said he had already been there for two and a half hours and hadn’t even made it down to Henry Law Park yet,” Mengers said.The Mallet Brothers, who opened for country music star Jason Aldean this summer, played on the Bernson Legal Stage. Mengers said they also drew in a large crowd.“I think the Mallet Brothers may be the first band that people came to Apple Harvest Day specifically to see,” he said. “They were their own attraction.”King Tut’s from Eliot, Maine, ended up selling out of apple cider by 1 p.m., Mengers said. “Vendors had a lot of success.”“Many food vendors told me that they had never made as much money in one day as they did at Apple Harvest Day this year,” said Coraluzzo. “They said they also had never felt so welcome as they do in Dover. They said they were all taken care of and thanked for being there all day.”“For me, it’s always great when it doesn’t rain,” Coraluzzo said. “But the day was also just good because it spurs people to go out and look for all these local businesses and keep dollars in our community.”“Whenever we put an event on, we don’t just do it, we do it well,” Coraluzzo said.